Will 7 shootings bring changes to Broad Ripple?

Police Chief Rick Hite and Public Safety Director Troy Riggs hold a press conferen e following the shooting of seven people in Broad Ripple early Saturday morning.

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Chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Rick Hite, left, speaks with another officer following a press conference on the shooting of seven people in Broad Ripple on early Saturday.(Photo: Anna Reed/The Star Anna Reed/The Star)Buy Photo

Indianapolis police say a volatile combination of streets overcrowded with loiterers, alcohol and a penchant by some people to resolve minor differences with gunfire contribute to a shooting that injured seven people in the popular Broad Ripple neighborhood on the Northside early Saturday.

Police plan to meet with businesses in Broad Ripple to develop long-range strategies to lessen congestion and conflicts.

"If you are not here to spend money and time in these businesses, you should not be loitering outside," Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Chief Rick Hite said Saturday afternoon. "If you bump into someone or spill a drink you should not resort to conflict."

Police said six Indianapolis men and a 23-year-old Fishers woman were shot after two people bumped into each other on the sidewalk, both pulled out handguns and fired them at each other 2:30 a.m. on the 700 block of Broad Ripple Avenue, the area's main thoroughfare. The gunfire sent late-night Fourth of July revelers scrambling for cover and police officers with first aid kits rushing toward the wounded. None of those struck by bullets was believed to be the combatants.

The most seriously wounded, Marcus Clayton 23, Indianapolis, was in critical condition at St. Vincent Hospital. Witnesses said he was shot in the head. The other victims had "non-life threatening" injuries, said IMPD Lt. Christopher Bailey.

No arrests have been made, and no one is in custody. Police said most witnesses fled the area after the shooting, and few have come forward with descriptions of the suspects.

Known for its funky galleries and shops by day and vibrant bars and restaurants at night, Broad Ripple, on most weekends, teems with foot and vehicle traffic. But it was the second mass shooting in the popular area in 11 months and the third shooting in the last four years in crowded public settings following the city's July 4 celebration. A year ago, a fight outside a Broad Ripple bar ended in gunfire that sent four victims to local hospitals with bullet wounds. And Sunday's shooting comes with the city on pace to have its highest homicide total in seven years.

Hite said police would meet with neighborhood business owners to discuss ways to reduce congestion on the street and intercede in minor altercations before they escalate to violence. One possible solution is to close Broad Ripple Avenue to traffic to ease congestion on the narrow sidewalks.

"You get people in tight quarters and they run into each other and tempers get short," Hite said.

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Chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Rick Hite, left, speaks with an IMPD Lieutenant following a press conference updating the information about the seven-victim shooting in Broad Ripple at about 2:30 a.m., in Indianapolis on Saturday, July 5, 2014.
Anna Reed/The Star

Chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Rick Hite, center, speaks at a press conference updating the information about the seven-victim shooting in Broad Ripple at about 2:30 a.m., in Indianapolis on Saturday, July 5, 2014.
Anna Reed/The Star

Police and reporters gather following a press conference updating the information about the seven-victim shooting in Broad Ripple at about 2:30 a.m., in Indianapolis on Saturday, July 5, 2014.
Anna Reed/The Star

IMPD officers armed with crowd dispersal weapons prepare to clear the Broad Ripple Chase Bank parking lot. The individuals in the parking lot complied quickly and politely, for the most part, so no real persuasion other than stern requests were required.
Mark Dickhaus / For The Star

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Police will also talk to business owners about identifying conflicts inside bars earlier and notifying police before they get out of hand. Police said the gunmen were probably in a bar beforehand but do not believe the quarrel started there.

Indianapolis Public Safety Director Troy Riggs said people carrying weapons are too quick to use them to settle minor skirmishes.

"Somebody loses their temper, alcohol is potentially involved," Riggs said. "Someone didn't think. It's hard to believe someone would try to take someone's life because of an argument."

Riggs said several members of IMPD's 15-member Emergency Response Group were at the scene within seconds, assisting victims.

"They were making tourniquets," Riggs said.

As the officers gave aid, one man was seen trying to put a .45-caliber pistol into a car. Lawrence Jones, 23, Indianapolis, was preliminarily charged with possession of a handgun without a license. But police do not consider him a suspect in the shooting.

"We know there were a lot of people out there so we are asking any potential witnesses to please come forward," Riggs said.

• Joshua Kyner, 26, Indianapolis, refused treatment but later drove himself to Community East Hospital for stitches.

• Dontay Harris, 23, Indianapolis, went to St. Vincent.

• Stacy Lamont Griffin, 23, Indianapolis, went to Methodist Hospital.

IMPD Detective Tom Lehn said victims were going from bar to bar when the shooting happened.

Rob Sabatini, who owns three bars on Broad Ripple Avenue, said friction in Broad Ripple is mostly caused by people who come to the area "and loiter in the street rather than going into the businesses."

"The bars will be half-empty, but the streets are packed," said Sabatini, a member of the Broad Ripple Village Association. "It's wall-to-wall people outside, and God forbid you bump into someone and they don't like it."

Sabatini, police and community leaders say as police clampdown on violence Downtown, some of the trouble-makers migrate to other areas of the city, including Broad Ripple.

Sabatini said he came to the strip at about midnight because his employees told him they were concerned about activities on the street.

"I got a call that tensions were escalating and there was very little police presence, things were going unchecked" Sabatini said. "It was very, very volatile, something was in the air. There was a large amount of congestion, violence and craziness. Fights were going on everywhere and there was one incident in which a guy was chasing another guy down the street."

Sabatini said he was standing at the front door of Rock Bottom when the shooting started across the street. He heard gunshots and saw a man, presumably Clayton, run to an alley and collapse with a gunshot wound to the head.

"A woman was screaming that her boyfriend had been shot, the police were using megaphones to clear the area and announce it was now a crime scene," Sabatini said. "My employees were in the line of fire."

Marc Lotter, a spokesman for Mayor Greg Ballard, said there were plenty of police officers on the strip.

"This was not a case of too little police presence," Lotter said. "This shooting took police with uniformed officers standing just a few feet away."

The IMPD incident report lists the names of 66 officers who responded to the scene.

Lotter said the apparent cause of the shooting "is something the mayor has been talking about a for a long time: resolving conflicts with guns."

In the summer of 2012 after another spate of violence in Broad Ripple, the community crime-fighting group Ten Point Coalition patrolled the area briefly and entered discussions with the BRVA about signing a contract to patrol regularly.

But the deal never happened, and there haven't been any more discussions between the two groups.

Ten Point member Horatio Luster said the group and the police crack down on troublemakers Downtown, so some of them are moving out to other areas instead.

"I think they are diverted elsewhere, not just Broad Ripple but to some of the malls, too," Luster said. "I'm not saying we are the saviors, but I think we could help up there."

Ten Point goes to scenes of shootings and tries to maintain order among the bystanders and does regular patrols Downtown to keep the peace.

Luster could not say whether Ten Point would patrol Board Ripple again as they did in 2012. Back then, several businesses were concerned about poor lighting on side streets that they believed encouraged muggings.

Indianapolis has seen 74 criminal homicides since Jan. 1. Most of those deaths were the result of shootings. That homicide tally also does not include those killings considered justifiable, such as suspects killed by police officers or people killed in self-defense.

If the slayings continue at that pace, Indianapolis could reach nearly 150 criminal homicides by the end of the year — well above the 125 it recorded at the end of 2013, which was the highest in seven years.

While the pace slowed slightly in June — last month saw eight homicides, the least deadly month all year — the Indianapolis deaths have still drawn considerable concern from the city's top administrators. Officials have attributed the increase in homicides to a number of reasons, including a rising use of heroin, a huge number of people leaving jails and prisons, a high poverty rate and too many households with no strong authority figures.

Carrie Baker, a part-time worker at Sasha's Jewelry Repair, said Saturday morning that investigators were still looking for a bullet that was fired into the shop during the melee.

It's to the point, Baker said, where people can't feel safe going out for something like Fourth of July,

"It's still definitely scary," she said in a phone interview Saturday.

Krista Johnson, a cashier at Bungalow Inc. on Westfield Boulevard, said Saturday afternoon that she goes out to the bars in Broad Ripple often. She said she always has a small knife in her purse, just in case something happens.

Mike Contreras, manager of Indy CD and Vinyl, said shootings do happen every once in a while in Broad Ripple.

"But seven seems pretty excessive for Broad Ripple," said Contreras, who's been working in the area for four years.

He added that the area is safe for the most part, especially during the day.

"At night, the crowd switches to the bar crowd," he said. "When the bars close is usually when something bad happens."

City-County Council member-at-large Jon Barth, who lives on the Northside, said the BRVA is anxious to meet with Hite.

"BRVA wants to know if there are some things that can be done tactically to make it safer," Barth said.

Barth said the large police presence in Broad Ripple, doesn't excuse the reality that IMPD has been short of officers for years.

"This overwhelming wave of violent crime is beyond control," Barth said. "We need more police on the streets and have to find a way to fund them."

Riggs said extra officers are always sent to Broad Ripple, as well as Downtown during holidays and big events.

"We don't just gear up Downtown, we send resources to Broad Ripple, too, because we know that will be very busy," Riggs said.

About 15 officers are in an Emergency Response Group. An extra ERG team was assigned to Broad Ripple Saturday night. They are in addition to regular beat officers and off-duty officers moonlighting for individual businesses.

"We've got as many officers assigned to this eight-block area as are usually assigned to a geographic area with 100,000 people," Hite said.

Nikki Smith, a bartender at Broad Ripple Tavern, aid she has lived and worked in the area for six years without having any problems or safety concerns.

"Anytime there's a shooting, my mom calls me and says, 'You need to get out of Broad Ripple.'"

But Smith said she's not going to leave.

"I've never been robbed or mugged," she said. "I've never felt unsafe."

For Jimmy Burgess, the crimes that happen every once in a while, coupled with the negative media coverage that follows, give a bad impression of Broad Ripple.

"I just think that anytime something like this happens, it causes a negative spin on all the other positive things that we do here," said Burgess, general manager of Broad Ripple Tavern.

He cited the local businesses, a recent Broad Ripple Village picnic and a fundraiser that raised about $5,000 for the troops. He added that several police officers are in the area during busy nights.

"When you put bad people in the area that are looking for trouble, there's going to be trouble," said Burgess, who's been working and living in Broad Ripple for about a year. "It's unfortunate that the only thing that ever gets publicized are the negative things that happen."

Burgess, who was working with Smith Saturday afternoon, said the popular Northside neighborhood remains a safe place for people to live, work and visit, regardless of the time of day.

"If I'm walking around at 2:30 a.m. in Broad Ripple, you're going to see me with a burrito," Burgess said. "You'll never see me with a gun."

Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to call the IMPD homicide office at (317) 327-3475 or Crime Stoppers of Indiana at (317) 262-TIPS (8477). Callers may also text "INDYCS" plus tip information to 274637 (CRIMES).